The  one overarching theme in the halls and breakout rooms was a belief that the  industry must continue to champion its relevancy in today’s converged  world.  Here the cloud was key, and the  SIM’s pivotal role in locking and unlocking access. Major Deal Team founder Bob  Pike and Co-Chairman of the Conference was certainly taken with the  opportunities here and felt extending the alliance’s, and the industry’s,  influence outside of the traditional Telco sphere would be critical.

”With  the likes of Apple and Google in the apps development market we need to think  about the whole network, not simply the mobile one,” he said. Pike believes the SIM, and  smart cards in general, have massive roles to play in enabling and securing  access to cloud services; a role he believes could be undertaken by thin client  software from players in the IT world “but not without significant cost and  complexity”.  

The  SIM and smart cards already provide proven levels of user authentication and  offer a logical next step for mobile and ‘over the top’ internet players alike  -  steps already being taken by the Smart  Card Web Server technology.

SIMposium  Chairman, Informa’s Mark Newman offers a similarly thought provoking view of  future opportunities; this time routed in the mobile telecoms space.”The  SIM’s potential as a platform for innovation extends beyond the converged world.  With Europe and North America so ‘smart phone centric’, competition between the  platforms is intense. Emerging markets, while not as internet-led are no less  hungry for new applications and services.”

Newman  believes the SIM is ideally placed to become the innovation platform of choice  here, helping operators deliver service differentiation, and revenues. And  follow that logic through, innovating on the SIM in these regions positions the  platform well for the day when mobile broadband reaches outside of the  developed world.

One  thing that Pike, Newman and many of the delegates agreed on was the need for  the card industry, and its representative, to continue to highlight the SIM as  a truly capable environment for service innovation and delivery in the face of  stiff competition from a new generation of platforms.  

Should  it be successful, and there is ample evidence from SIMposium that it will be,  the SIM card’s future is not simply assured, but absolutely critical to the  mobility strategies of traditional and new generation service providers.